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Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling on their last TIFF together

It’s the end of an era for the Toronto International Film Festival — and also the beginning of one.

Outgoing TIFF boss Piers Handling and incoming boss Cameron Bailey sit together for an interview with the Star at TIFF Bell Lightbox, as they have many times before, to talk about the film offerings for their annual cinema celebration, which this year runs Sept. 6 to 16.

Piers Handling, left, is stepping down as CEO after next month’s Toronto International Film Festival, his 41st, while Cameron Bailey, who was hired by Handling in 1990, will become “co-head.” (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star)

This time it’s different. This will be among the last occasions the two meet the press together.

Handling, 69, is stepping down as TIFF director and CEO after next month’s fest, which will be the 41st he’s attended — he’s missed just two of the 43 editions.

Bailey, 55, currently TIFF’s artistic director, will assume the new title of “co-head” come Oct. 1, splitting the top job with a person to be named shortly. Bailey will concentrate on programming, as he’s done for many years — he and Handling once shared the title of “co-director” of the fest. The other new co-head will deal more with the financial aspects of TIFF’s year-round operations, which each year attracts nearly 3 million attendees and $189 million in economic benefits for Toronto.

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“It’s been a huge part of my life,” Handling says, contemplating the impending change that for him will include writing a book on cinema and enjoying more skiing, his other passion.

“Bittersweet feelings? Not really. Because you feel like you’ve done so much, accomplished so much, had so much fun. I indulged my passion; it was unbelievable what this organization has allowed me to do. I’m looking forward to the next step, because there are other things you want to do, that you cannot do in this job. It’s just too demanding. I know that the organization is in great hands. Cam’s been with us for 30 years; he’s drunk the Kool-Aid!”

Bailey smiles at the remark, and gently corrects that, in fact, he’s only been there for 28 years. Prior to that, he covered the fest as a film critic.

“I started in 1990,” he says of his TIFF tenure. “I’ve worked with Piers for decades now; he’s the one who hired me. I’ve learned a lot from him. I’ve always had Piers to go to as my role here has changed. If I’ve got advice, counsel that I’m looking for, I assume that I’ll still have his number and I can call him if I need to! But the ultimate responsibility for making sure the vision, the strategy of the festival is going as it should, will rest with me and the other co-head. It’s something I’m thinking seriously about, but I’ve learned a lot here and I’m ready to take it on.”

They’re both ready for TIFF 2018, which is shaping up to be one of the best film lineups in recent memory. TIFF will have its usual bounty of auteur and Oscar-beckoning cinema offerings, the latter including Damien Chazelle’s First Man, Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk and Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born.

The fest has also benefited indirectly from a dispute between the Cannes Film Festival and the small-screen Netflix streaming giant, which kept several top titles out of the Cannes showcase in May. TIFF will be screening eight Netflix features, among them Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA and Paul Greengrass’s 22 July, both films seeking truth from within the horror of real-life massacres. The fest this year is for the first time opening with a Netflix film: David Mackenzie’s historical adventure Outlaw King, starring Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce.

Cannes’ loss has been TIFF’s gain, but Handling and Bailey prefer not to see it that way. They view the rise of Netflix not as an existential battle of big vs. small screens, as Cannes does, but rather as an evolution of an event that has always embraced change.

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“We’ve always been about putting the audience first — we have a new strategic plan called ‘Audience First,’” Handling says.

“We’ve been a public festival from the very beginning. So for us it’s about finding the best films from around the world, whether they come from Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros., Netflix or Amazon. We’ll show it.”

This doesn’t mean abandoning the big screen — TIFF Bell Lightbox has five of them, seven if you count the two small theatres used by programmers.

“We’re about the big-screen experience and we always will be,” Handling says. “That’s who and what we are. We are great friends and partners with Cineplex, who give us their cinemas. We’ll always privilege that.”

Adds Bailey: “The thing we know for sure is that audiences are going to be watching movies in lots of different ways. It won’t just be in one way. We’re here to present and support and prioritize the big-screen experience. That’s why we have this building, with these beautiful cinemas. So that’s always going to be a big part of it for us.

“But I think where the movies come from is going to be a variety of places, as Piers was saying. Streaming services are a part of the mix now and we’re pursuing the talent, we’re pursuing what our audience is looking for and we’re also prioritizing the big-screen experience — and that includes movies that we can show on the big screen but come from streaming services.”

Some Netflix films from TIFF 2018 will also have theatrical runs at the Lightbox, Bailey says, pointing to the big success of Bong Joon-ho’s action-adventure drama Okja, which screened at TIFF almost concurrently with its Netflix debut in 2017. He’s hoping the same will happen with ROMA, which Cuarón shot with a 65mm camera that allows for such fine definition and resolution, it demands a big screen for proper viewing.

The debate over screen sizes speaks to the social ferment we’re all feeling these days, as changes in all areas of our life — cultural, social, political — seem to happen almost daily. The films of TIFF 2018 reflect this unrest, Bailey says, with ROMA being a good example of it.

“We’ve seen films this year that try to put themselves right in the centre of the storm that’s whirling all around us right now. So it’s kind of a social storm, right? There’s a lot of change happening: people’s identities are being questioned, people’s position in society is being questioned, people are falling through cracks or rising precipitously. All of these things are happening all at once, and filmmakers are looking into that.”

Handling notes that many of the films at TIFF 2018 feature women in “complex or conflicted” roles, not necessarily a response to the ongoing #MeToo movement, but nevertheless in tune with unsettled times.

“They’re feeling conflicted and troubled, trying to navigate a world in a way that some of the great male roles have been in the past. They’re not pure heroines. They are much more shaded, morally ambiguous. You got Nicole Kidman in Destroyer, which is absolutely like that, and so is Patricia Clarkson in Out of Blue. You’ve also got Lady Gaga in a big film (A Star is Born) who is going through some of those changes as well.”

Time’s up on the interview, possibly my last with Handling and Bailey together.

It’s time to binge-watch movies!

Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @peterhowellfilm

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